Archive for the 'Book Reviews' Category

« Older posts

Book Review: Now Consciousness: Exploring the World Beyond Thought by Albert Blackburn

October 19, 2011

Now Consciousness: Exploring the World Beyond Thought
by Albert Blackburn

Review by Jerry Katz (I will be speaking about Now Consciousness at the Science and Nonduality Conference, Friday, October 21, 2011.)

Albert Blackburn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1910 and died in 1987. He had a career in aviation as a pilot and owner of a flight school. He trained World War II pilots. Blackburn’s real interest, however, was exploring consciousness.

Blackburn was a member of the Theosophical Society from 1934 to 1944 and immersed himself in the study of auras, spiritual evolution, reincarnation, karma, kundalini. However, a conversation with Jiddhu Krishnamurti led to the falling apart of Blackburn’s psychological world and his entrance into the world of nonduality or Now-Consciousness. The conversation is recounted early in the book, the turning point being Krishnamurti’s questioning of whether Blackburn’s beliefs were true.

The rest of the book develops the teaching of Now-Consciousness, about which Blackburn writes, “[Now-Consciousness] is a nondualistic state in which the idea of the I and not-I does not exist.” He says it is the process of the mind coming to know itself.

The book consists of five essays written between 1944 and 1982. Each essay addresses Now-Consciousness from its own angle: from initiation into Now-Consciousness, from the psychology of Now-Consciousness, from a practical approach involving attention to thoughts, and through bold confessions.

Besides Now-Consciousness, here are the other major themes, each treated in different ways throughout the book:

Intelligence. Also known as awareness, consciousness, the Tao, or truth. Blackburn says, “Because intelligence is real, it can only be found through the negative approach. In discovering what is not, truth is perceived.”

Not-knowing. He writes, “Be in the moment of questioning, so awake, so aware that you realize you don’t know.”

Time. “This idea of time gives rise to the false ideas of postponement, spiritual growth, progress, a Savior, Gurus, the Path, and reincarnation as the ultimate postponement. These are given as excuses for our own inadequacy, in not being able to follow one thing directly to the end.”

The I-process. The I is the ego, the world we’ve created about ourselves that causes us suffering. It’s that way we are that we know isn’t our true self. Blackburn identifies several steps in this process of generating and sustaining the false self and shows how we cut ourselves off from intelligence or truth.

The Cycle of Perception. In watching the I-process we find that there is a magic moment before associating a perception with habits, memories, and conditioning. The ability to access this magic moment is now-consciousness and it unfolds in stages that Blackburn calls the Cycle of Perception.

Blackburn says, “The first thing is to become aware of what the mind is occupied with, its patterned thoughts, habits, and reactions. … Slowly you come into the cycle of perception or Now-Consciousness. And the oftener this state is experienced, the more you realize it is true life.”

Blackburn fits right into the current world of nonduality. He stood alone and encouraged others to do so. Although he acknowledges his teacher Jiddhu Krishnamurti, Blackburn claimed that his teachings were his own. As his own authority in these teachings, he was straightforward and eschewed the guru role and even the teacher role. He went where he was invited and held dialogues. He didn’t give talks, as such. These travels took him and his wife through the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Blackburn is also the author of Worlds Beyond Thought: Conversations on Now-Consciousness, which is also available as a series audio cassette tapes. Though his books and audios are not widely distributed or known in the Internet era of the last 15 years, they are still in print and distributed by his wife Gabriele through IdylWildBooks.com.

The Table of Contents is spare, however the topic and themes of each section and chapter are stated clearly. There is no index which would have been very useful in a book such as this where each main theme is scattered throughout the book. A proper index would gather and make sense of all those appearances.

I highly recommend this book for anyone exploring nondual spirituality or nondual psychotherapy. It is clear, simple, and straightforward enough to enhance your understanding of how we get lost in our beliefs, memories, thoughts, our words, and conditionings. He points to the “magic moment” when, instead of getting lost in imaginings of how we think things are, we turn instead to Now-Consciousness and get directly to the point and through to the end of whatever we are considering. That is, we learn to deal directly and fully with stressful situations and move on.

Order Now Consciousness: The World Beyond Thought, by Albert Blackburn

Posted in Book Reviews, Gurus/Teachers/Sages | Leave a Comment »
Tags:

Review of Only That: The Life and Teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson, by Kalyani Lawry

January 22, 2011

Only That
The Life and Teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson
by Kalyani Lawry

Order from Amazon.com

Order from Amazon.co.uk

Order from publisher

Reviewed by Jerry Katz

Author Kalyani Lawry’s association with Bob Adamson has a long history. She first met ‘Sailor’ Bob in the 1970s when they were both devotees of Swami Muktananda. At one point Bob shifted his devotion from Muktananda to Nisargadatta Maharaj. Kalyani did not make that shift, however decades later Kalyani would find herself sitting with Bob at his home and, now, presenting us with a book of Bob’s life and a selection of his teachings.

Only That includes 16 glossy pages with 23 black and white photos of Bob from childhood through various stages of his life, including a few photos of Nisargadatta Maharaj, his teacher. The photos and the first half of the book, which is about Bob’s life, are new contributions to the printed Adamson works.

The Table of Contents for Part 2, The Teaching, is cleverly designed, with each chapter a teaching unto itself, for example, ‘The Ego is Fiction,’ ‘Can You Get Out of the Now?’ and ‘Everything is That.’ There is no index, which would be helpful for easily finding uses of the term ‘full stop’, or where Bob referred to Buddhism, for example.

Nisargadatta Maharaj was Bob’s primary teacher. To such a degree of success has Bob communicated the essence of Nisargadatta, that he is informally known as perhaps the best living representative of the Nisargadatta teaching. I make it clear that Nisargadatta never authorized Bob (or anyone else) to teach and Bob has his own style of communication.

This informality of lineage is important to point out because it informs potential students of Bob that they are not being invited into a formal lineage or a tradition. While there are benefits to aligning with a tradition, any association with Bob is that of two people getting down to what is true.

The author’s purpose is to introduce and further contribute to Adamson’s published works by presenting his teachings alongside his biography. The author has succeeded and also contributed something new, since there is no other printed work providing so many details of Bob’s past. I’m not aware of all the podcasts with Bob which may contain further biographical material. I know that Bob has discussed his past with people other than Kalyani, but I believe this is the first time Bob’s history has been published in print.

The biography is the bones of the book’s theme and thesis: a life of alcoholic suffering gives way to nondual spiritual enlightenment. The thesis is that it is possible to overcome suffering and alcoholism and to understand one’s true nature if one gets a foothold in sanity, values it deeply, and follows the path that opens up as far as possible.

While Bob Adamson’s teachings are available in other published writings, in podcasts, and in person, what I like about this book is the packaging of biography with teachings and the noting of the turning points in Bob’s life that opened up to the realization expressed in the section of the book on teachings.

The turning points were the final quitting of drinking and a question that arose out of that, a question I’d never heard, a question Bob posed about his life. I won’t say what the question was, leaving it to the reader to stumble upon.

What makes Only That relevant and significant is the biographical material in conjunction with the teaching. The phase of ‘Sailor’ Bob’s life in the Navy and his great psychological suffering and alcoholism are the most intense parts of the biography. They form the most important part of the book because they are new revelations in print regarding Adamson and they show the profound suffering, alcoholism, addiction, and despair.

~ ~ ~

This is only half the review. Please click here to read the rest at Advaita Academy.

Only That
The Life and Teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson
by Kalyani Lawry

Order from Amazon.com

Order from Amazon.co.uk

Order from publisher

Posted in Book Reviews, Gurus/Teachers/Sages | 1 Comment »
Tags: , ,

Review of Life With a Hole In It, by Vicki Woodyard

December 7, 2010

Vicki Woodyard’s new book, Life With A Hole In It: That’s How the Light Gets In, would make a great Christmas gift.

In this issue is my review of Vicki’s book. If you’ve enjoyed her writings, you have to see them in the totality of a book, with wholeness and continuity. It’s a much grander experience. I recommend it.

Click here to read an excerpt and order either the e-book with immediate download or the hard copy book

Vicki Talks Truth and Requires You to Face It

a review by Jerry Katz

Vicki Woodyard tells about her experiences, feelings, friends, teachers, and spiritual realizations during her husband Bob’s nearly five year struggle with the cancer known as multiple myeloma.

Vicki says on page one, “I just want you to have an experience.”

This book IS an experience. You’re going to take Vicki’s approach:

“Oh God, I am not strong enough. I can write, I can joke, but I cannot cure my own heartache. The irony is that I know that nothing will take it away. I would choose insanity if I could, but choice has nothing to do with things like that. My teacher [Vernon Howard] said, `When you are carrying your cross up Crucifixion Hill, offer no resistance whatever.’”

You’re going to walk the chemo halls with Vicki, yes, but you’ll also share a table with her and the Buddha at the Waffle House. More buttah? More wisdom that brokenness brings?

While experiencing these stories of struggle and humor, and while being brought as low as one human spirit can go, you somehow rise to an experience of rich wholeness and the truth of being human.

How is that done? By facing pain and suffering so that you see it in fullness, which is its abidance within a peaceful energy field.

Regardless of what Vicki went through in the loss of her husband, the loss of her seven year old daughter to cancer, the losses of close friends to cancer, there was never a severing from inherent wholeness, nor, as Vicki says, can there be. “The eye of wholeness doesn’t cry.”

This book is often hard-going, sometimes light, deeply loving and humanitarian. It requires the reader to face pain and suffering. This is a powerful, cleansing, truth-talking book. No other nonduality book has the texture, the quality of writing, the points of focus as Life With A Hole In It. It is an extremely worthwhile addition to one’s nonduality education.

Read an excerpt and order “Life With A Hole In It” from Booklocker.com

Order “Life With A Hole In It” from Amazon.com

Posted in Book Reviews, Gurus/Teachers/Sages | Leave a Comment »
Tags: ,

Book review: The Shortest Way Home, A Contemplative Path to God, by Wesley Lachman

November 7, 2010

The Shortest Way Home: A Contemplative Path to God
by Wesley Lachman

Reviewed by Jerry Katz

“Contemplative prayer is simply a wordless, trusting opening of self to the divine presence.” … “If you begin to walk this path your heart will love it,” writes Wesley Lachman.

Wesley Lachman is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and still teaches spirituality in the Church. He is a student at the Center for Sacred Sciences in Eugene, Oregon. He is a father and grandfather.

About a hundred pages in length, The Shortest Way Home is a smooth read. The chapters are short; at the end of each one is a contemplative exercise allowing the reader to practice what was read. The table of contents has a consistent structure, each chapter featuring a duality: Suffering and Happiness, Belief and Experience, Existence and Impermanence, and so on. The author seamlessly includes quotations. In this example is revealed the point of the book:

“It is a path that must be walked or practiced, and yet it leads to where you already are. `It is a journey from a place we have never been to a place we have never left.’ It can begin with some rational description such as found in this text, but the mystery of God is its true end.” The quotation-within-the-quotation is from John W. Groff, Jr. All quotations are referenced. The bibliography is carefully selected and annotated.

The first third of the book considers the experience of the world. Lachman says, “Trust your own direct experience of life.” He shows how everything is dissolving moment by moment including what we assume of ourselves and God. “How did we ever delude ourselves into thinking we could find lasting happiness in our possessions when we are losing every one of them?” He asks; we contemplate, remembering to trust our experience and to open to divine presence.

In the next two-thirds of the book he considers the experience of our self: “If I really possess nothing at all, then what or who is this self?” Lachman exposes the story of I, showing that one’s true nature is the space of divine presence in which the story of I apparently manifests and dissolves. Who we are is that divine presence, that space, awareness, consciousness. Not our thoughts. Not our story of I.

This is the nondual confession beautifully expressed within Christian contemplative context, full of experiential opportunities, and serving beginners to the contemplative path and to nonduality itself.

Our true nature is known as beginninglessness, the cloudless empty sky. Suffering is experienced as a long haul, scars, and weariness.

Lachman says, “The first step on the contemplative path is just to acknowledge our desire not to suffer, our yearning for something better. The second step is to begin to experiment with drawing closer to our God, our Happiness, by exploring someone made in God’s image: us!”

The Shortest Way Home easily draws you into the quiet atmosphere of the contemplative challenge and toward the realization of what you actually are.

Purchase The Shortest Way Home from Amazon.com

Find out more from the publisher, O Street Publishing

Posted in Book Reviews, Christianity | Leave a Comment »
Tags: , ,

Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters

July 20, 2010

Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg founded the Beat Movement and were major forces in ushering Buddhism and a free nonduality into the West. A new book – Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, Edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford — has received an excellent review in the Los Angeles Times, which is reprinted below.
 
Jack and Allen, in their own words 

An assemblage of about 200 letters between Beat men Ginsberg and Kerouac offers insight into their friendship, their souls and their writing. 

By Robert Faggen,  Special to the Los Angeles Times 

July 18, 2010 

Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
The Letters 

Edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford

 Viking: 528 pp., $35

 ”Howl” (1956) and “On the Road” (1957), two works that helped define a time, sprang from two wildly fired, independent imaginations. Few would have put Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac together when they met at Columbia University in 1944. But they became profound friends, inspired in part by the muse of the elusive, multi-vocal Neal Cassady and joined by the brilliantly perverse, professorial elder William Burroughs. Beaten and beatitude — beat, the Beats. There has been as much interest in the style, lives and scenes as there has been in the thinking and the writing. Ginsberg lived his life increasingly with dramatic flair, if not self-promotion. Kerouac appeared to drift soon after the 1950s into drink and solitude. The depth of their development as friends but especially as writers has never been shown more clearly than in this stunning new collection, “Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters.” Consisting of about 200 letters, the book is large and comes with few notes. The letters are sometimes long but almost infallibly interesting. Ginsberg biographer Bill Morgan and David Stanford, a longtime editor at Viking, provide readers with a volume as illuminating as it is indispensable for understanding these writers and their work.
 
Ginsberg and Kerouac divulge here what really seems to matter most — their souls and their writing. There is literary gossip about their compatriots, including, of course, Cassady, Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Herbert Huncke and others. The letters, though, are more often about what each thinks about something vital. It’s fascinating, for example, to hear Kerouac talk about what Cassady had to say after attending a lecture given by Thomas Mann. And if there is a widely held view that Kerouac became a curmudgeon only later in his life, readers might be surprised to find him writing in 1949: “I want to read books, I want to write books, I’ll write books in the woods. Thoreau was right; Jesus was right. It’s all wrong and I denounce it and it can all go to hell. I don’t believe in this society but I believe in man, like Mann. So roll your own bones, I say.” 

Kerouac was responding, in part, to Ginsberg’s struggle with being committed to a psychiatric institute. Kerouac tends to maintain a laconic, sad assurance in his letters. Ginsberg’s missives on his shapeshifting self tend to meander and seem a bit more self-consciously literary. As Ginsberg comes to reject the notion that he’s crazy, Kerouac encourages him as a great young poet. We see Ginsberg entranced by Blake’s visions and by the purity of Bach. And Ginsberg inspires and confirms Kerouac’s yearning for a mythic West meeting a dharmic East. In reading these letters, you feel both writers moving each other toward greater energies of transcendence. 

Faggen is writing a biography of Ken Kesey and is the Barton Evans and H. Andrea Neves Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College. 

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times 

Order Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters at Amazon.com.

Posted in Book Reviews | Leave a Comment »
Tags: , ,

Busting Loose from the Business Game, by Robert Scheinfeld

April 9, 2010

I’m enjoying this book by Robert Scheinfeld, Busting Loose from the Business Game. I’ll write a fuller review in the near future.

This book is nonduality for regular guys. Take your basic guy who’s working for a living, a guy who’s into sports, family, his friends. A guy who can’t figure out how to live like his rich boss who definitely isn’t any smarter than he is. A guy who doesn’t know or care about spirituality or anything in any depth except maybe golf, football, or hockey or his work, his car, or his outdoor grill. This book is nonduality for that guy. It’s not really a (stereotypical) girl’s book. It’s a guy’s book with references to tools, drilling, and sports.

It’s a radical book. Scheinfeld gradually builds up to the confession that business is made up. Not only business and every aspect of it, but your entire life, your work, your family, everything you value. Scheinfeld shows the reader, step by step, and with great patience and practicality, how to stop “pushing the river”, how to let go and allow … existence or whatever you want to call it … run things.

The author says to live your life reactively. Let the world unfold and respond simply and directly. He shows you how to do that. Scheinfeld admits that when you begin this process of busting loose from the business game, or the game of life, you could expect some difficult challenges and that the process could take two or more years to stabilize.

I still have a couple chapters to read, but I like what Scheinfeld has written and the world of nonduality or self-realization he is putting together.

I recommend visiting the Amazon site and “looking inside” the book. You can read the introduction, but more importantly read the index to see the depths this book strikes:

Amazon.com site for Busting Loose from the Business Game.

Posted in Book Reviews, Nondual Perspectives | 2 Comments »
Tags: ,

Review of “Dissolved” by Tarun Sardana and Interview with the Author

January 30, 2010

Dissolved
by Tarun Sardana

Advaita is the traditional and stepwise teaching of nonduality. If you’re looking for a brief book about Advaita that you can fall in love with, get Dissolved.

Dissolved is a delightful-to-hold-in-your-hands, attractively designed 90 page book. It is a dialogue between a seeker and a sage.

Dissolved is a gently told Advaita: a study of mind; a question of illusion; an enquiry, “Who am I?”; a surrender to the Guru, to the Self; a dialogue on spontaneous action, pre-determination, fearlessness.

This is an easily received Advaita, too: a questioning of the world of duality and reactivity; a confession of living in the world when established in the Self; an addressing of pain and sorrow.

Dissolved is a practical Advaita: impermanence; the nature of happiness; renunciation, diet, helping out the world, alcohol and drugs; all these topics enter the dialogue and are crisply addressed.

Dissolved is a full Advaita: in the end there is the dissolution into Self through surrender to the Guru and via self-enquiry.

Dissolved is filled with stories and metaphors, some of which you may have heard and all of which are heard freshly once again.

In the following fragment, the Guru plays the role of seeker and the seeker Vivek plays the role of Guru; this is done to test Vivek’s knowledge, or perhaps the reader’s knowledge, or perhaps it is a pure demonstration of the play of Self:

Guru Ji: But still how can [the Self-realized being] meet people, who give him hatred and abuses, with love?

Vivek: What happens when one throws a stone in the ocean?

Guru Ji: Water gets splashed.

Vivek: Does the ocean splash back stones in return? No. The ocean only has water to give. No matter what you throw it, it will only throw water back. Similarly, a Self-realized being is an ocean of love. He has only love to share. No matter what you throw in, you will only get love. There is nothing else in there.

Guru Ji: Still … How is this possible? I know, you will say they don’t see anything separate from them, they see only the Self, etc., etc.

As the dynamic between Vivek and Guru Ji plays out, the reader eventually joins to make a trinity. Sometimes the reader takes the attitude of seeker, sometimes the sage. In this way, the reader eventually becomes another character, merging with, dissolving into Guru Ji and Vivek, so that all three characters become one.

In the beginning, the seeker Vivek asks his Guru for help in understanding who he is. In the end, there is dissolution into the Self, into consciousness. Dissolved, therefore, is a full-cycle, concise version of the teaching of Advaita.

Whether the reader dissolves into Vivek and Guru Ji, or dissolves into Self, or sits back with a cup of tea and dissolves a spoonful of sugar into it, this book serves up many levels of rewards.

Perhaps you are seeking a beginning education in Advaita, or further practice of self-inquiry, or maybe you only want to enjoy the dialogue, the stories within, the story at large, the teaching, the expression. In only 90 pages of gentle dialogue, poetry, and storytelling, Dissolved offers all this, all you could and could not imagine.

~ ~ ~

Preview “Dissolved” on Google Books

Purchase “Dissolved” from any of the following places:

Amazon.com link

A1 Books – India

Parimal Publications

Interview with Tarun Sardana

Photo: Tarun Sardana

How about a brief bio?

I was born in May 1979. I stay in Delhi, India with my parents, my wife and my two and a half years old son. I started my career as a software professional in year 1999 and was working as a project manager with an MNC before KnowI was founded.

How did you stumble into Truth? Any childhood stories?

My Grandmom and mom are spiritual followers from as long as I can remember. They used to go to the satsangs every Sunday and would also take me along with them. We had a scripture at home called ‘Satvastu ka Kudrati Granth’ which means ‘Sacred scriptures of Satyug as revealed by the nature’. They used to read it daily and share with me and my younger brother their spiritual experiences. That was how I was initiated to the truth. While in school, we were taught the history of Sikhism as part of our curriculum as it was a Sikh school. The curriculum was about the ten Sikh gurus, their encounter with the truth and their brief biographies. The biographies really interested me. I always wanted to understand what is ‘that’ which every scripture points at. I used to lock myself for our hours in a room meditating and seeking that truth, seeking God until one day when I came across one of Ramana Maharishi’s article on web which changed my direction of the search from finding God to finding the one who is seeking God.

How did Dissolved come about?

‘Dissolved’ is a book that came as a spontaneous expression as part of my own spiritual journey.

What Advaita teachers do you recommend?

I believe all the teachers are good, it really depends on the seeker which pointers suit his temperament the best. My introduction to Advaita was through Shri Ramana Maharishi’s and Nisargadatta Ji Maharaj’s teachings. Though, I have not met anyone of them in person. I did visit Shri Ramana Maharishi’s ashram in Tiruvannamalai back in 2007.

Why did you write this book as a dialogue?

Before the silence takes over, this is how a conversation happens in one’s mind – in a dialogue form. Therefore the book was written in a dialogue form.

How do you create an effective pointer to truth?

Usually the truth that one experiences is inexpressible in words, so to communicate one tries to relate it with the closest example from life. It happens as a spontaneous expression rather than a thought out one.

On your website, www.knowi.org, you speak about workshops and trainings. What are you offering or planning to offer? How would Dissolved be used in such an offering?

KnowI has been formed to serve as a platform to facilitate knowing the “I” through various mediums like publications, articles, workshops, talks… etc… Dissolved plays an important role in such offerings as it covers most of the aspects of the so-called spiritual journey.

I don’t think you use the word “surrender” in Dissolved and yet this book is certainly about surrender. Why did you decide to describe surrender rather than speak directly about how to surrender, as you did with self-enquiry?

‘Surrender’ is the only way to the Self. Surrender means admitting one’s powerlessness and this can only happen when one clearly sees its powerlessness. And self-enquiry does the same. It reveals the powerlessness and non-existence of the mind separate from the Self and thus leading the mind to surrender. Therefore, the book talks about the Self-enquiry, letting the mind to see the truth and thereafter surrender to follow naturally.

How did you want the reader to respond to Dissolved?

As the book says, “Dissolved is the result of every Self-enquiry, which is dissolving of the non-existent ego-self in the Self.” The book expects the same to happen. Dissolved moves as a journey from Vivek (a character in the book) to no-Vivek. If while reading they can make the same journey, the book will achieve its purpose.

What are you doing to change the educational system to a transformational institution founded in truth and awareness?

The current education system is being followed and practiced since ages. The employment sector and everything else is completely based on the present education system. Therefore, sudden transformation of the system may not be possible. Realizing that, KnowI has started an initiative called KnowI Education, which attempts to provide a supplement to the current education system i.e. not making changes in the current education system but providing a supplement to what lacks there.

More details about KnowI Education can be found at:
www.knowi.org/knowieducation.html

Dissolved
by Tarun Sardana

Preview “Dissolved” on Google Books

Purchase “Dissolved” at any of the following places:

Amazon.com link

A1 Books – India

Parimal Publications

Review and interview by Jerry Katz

Posted in Book Reviews, Gurus/Teachers/Sages, Interviews | 1 Comment »
Tags: , , ,

Advaita: The Truth of Non-Duality. A Review.

January 28, 2010



Advaita: The Truth of Non-Duality
by V. Subrahmanya Iyer (Teacher), Paul Brunton (Student/Note taker), Andre van den Brink (Compiler of Brunton’s notes), Mark Scorelle (Editor of van den Brink’s compilations).

Quoting Andre van den Brink in the Nonduality Highlights #3676: “Paul Brunton left 1200 pages of single spaced type written notes from his period with V.S.Iyer. Iyer was an Advaitin teacher behind the scenes of the Ramakrishna Mission in the 40′s. Guru of Swami Siddeshwarananda and Swami Nikhilananda and the Maharaja of Mysore. The notes are available at http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/publications/#vsiyer. Out of that material I compiled the paragraphs I thought were the best, most concise and to the point. I had them on the website for years and then someone studied the material and asked to publish the compilation.”

This book reads like notes taken in a university course, really good notes from a great teacher! Hence, there’s a sense of disjointedness, even though the paragraphs are related and logical. No one is questioning the accuracy of the notes or the correctness of the teacher, just saying that the book reads like notes that were taken. For example, here are four paragraphs in the order they appear in the book. Remember, this stuff was written in the 30s and 40s:

“Emotion cannot be killed, but it must be brought under the control and check of reason. Reason must be kept on top, as emotion often leads the truth-seeker astray.

“That which dupes 99% of people is taking satisfaction for truth. Beware of that which satsifies your feelings.

“If you do not take away the ego, the ‘me’, no proper inquiry into philosophical truth is possible, but only into religion.

“The ego magnifies what it prefers or desires, thus distorting outlook and incapacitating it for truth.”

Some paragraphs are longer and flow better than the ones above, but there’s still the feel of reading notes and the sense that the paragraphs are modular and can be moved around.

Some readers might like to know they’re reading notes, as they might feel they’re getting at the essence of Iyer’s teaching. To me, the teachings appear solid as rocks and therefore a good introduction to Advaita or a supplement to a formal course of study.

Here are examples from each chapter:

Philosophy: The Inquiry into Truth:

“What is wanted in Advaita is thinking it out for yourself all the 24 hours and not merely reading books or hearing words.”

Means and Methods of Inquiry:

“Advaita does not prove that there is One: It proves that there is no second thing!”

The Need of Semantics:

“First find out the meaning of words. You will find that they are simply mental images. These again are just your constructions and concoctions.”

Perception and Idealism:

“What we start with we call ‘outside object’ and what we finish with we call ‘percept’. Our illusion lies in thinking the two are different. They are not, but one and the same.”

Change and Illusion:

“The individual is a bundle of memories, desires, etc. What are memories and desires? Something imagined. Therefore the individual self is entirely an imagination.”

Mind, the Ideation of Consciousness:

“If you can cast away the ego-consciousness, the individual mind is the same as the universal mind.

“All objects and creatures are mind alone. In advanced Vedanta you convert this statement into, ‘are Atman alone’.

“All these [scriptural] quotations prove that Advaita teaches that mind is none other than what India calls Self, Atman, Universe and Brahman.”

The Self, the Seer of the Seen:

“Once you understand the ego, you will have understood 90% of Vedanta. You must learn that the ego is different from consciousness.”

Avasthatraya: Coordinating the Three States of Consciousness:

“It will be a great error to write that the world is a dream: It is not. The correct statement is: The world is like a dream. This is because both dream and waking worlds are mental constructs.”

Realisation of Truth is the Removing of Ignorance:

“Non-duality does not mean the non-existence of a second thing, but its non-existence as other than yourself. The mind must know it is of the same substance as the objects.”

The Doctrine of Non-Causality:

“We do not deny that a succession of ideas, [that] objects appear before us. What we deny is that there is a causal relation between them.”

Advaita in Practice:

“What is the fundamental reason why we should control the senses? Because their characteristic is to make you think erroneously that the second thing is real, that the objects are real.”

The Jnani, the Knower of Truth:

“The jnani makes no voluntary effort, but does what has to be done. Therefore he will practise both activity and abstention at different times.”

Where it is difficult to find in-person teachers of Advaita, and where Advaita demands a lifelong relationship with a teacher, what does a person do? If you’re hungry enough, you’ll move to where a teacher is available.

If you’re hungry for what the study of Advaita can deliver, but won’t move to where the teacher is, then you have to read, study, communicate with people online, meet teachers in person occasionally. This would be a very good book as part of your lifelong learning of Advaita, or the truth of who you are.


Advaita: The Truth of Non-Duality
by V. Subrahmanya Iyer (Teacher), Paul Brunton (Student/Note taker), Andre van den Brink (Compiler of Brunton’s notes), Mark Scorelle (Editor of van den Brink’s compilations).


Purchase Advaita: The Truth of Non-Duality at Amazon.com

Posted in Book Reviews | Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , ,

Review: Liberation from the Lie, by Eric Gross

January 3, 2010



Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All
by Eric Gross

Review by Jerry Katz

A Thousand Headlights upon the Fear Self

Strong attributes make this recommended reading. One is the relentless characterization of the Fear-Self with over a thousand uses of the term Fear-Self, an average of four per page:

“A Fear-Self can only deal with another Fear-Self. The importance of this observation cannot be overstated. When we believe another to be her Fear-Self, we cannot see her authentic self. This means that in our world, we are dealing only with the confluence of Fear-Selves. This is why many of us are easily insulted: we take the stress and fear of others, which are always expressions of their Fear-Selves, personally. This is the cause of most interpersonal misunderstandings, disputes, and even wars between nations.”

Another strong attribute is reference to African hunter-gatherer societies and Native American practices and sensibilities:

“Hunter-gatherer children were loved and respected just as they were. Modern children must earn the love and respect of their elders, on their elders’ terms. This is the origin of the fundamental invalidation that all of us experience… .”

“When it appears you have hit rock bottom, the Peacemaker hands you a sheet of paper with two columns. One column is a list of healing practices that are Native American, such as sweat lodge, singing, dancing, and working with a traditional counselor; the other lists practices that are Western, including job training, substance abuse counseling, therapy, going back to school, etc. The Peacemaker asks you to take the list home, read it carefully and discuss it with no one. He asks you to circle each item that speaks to your heart and not necessarily your head, to return the list to the Peacemaker the next day. He has give you a little nudge that encourages you to become your own healer… .

Also a strong presence is the author’s many personal revelations:

“At night, when I get into bed, I feel the pressure to be intimate. This ultimately causes me to flee relationships. I am uncomfortable and feel no sexuality. … The Fear-Self is entirely self-involved. Everything that happens …. is about me. … Similar anxieties occur at work. I become inexplicably nervous around the boss. I have persistent fantasies of getting fired, winding up broke and homeless. … The grandiose Fear-Self is, in fact, nervous and vulnerable.”

Another strong attribute is the twenty-one exercises.

The ultimate element is the teaching that can get you to turn from identification with the lie to what you are. That turning is liberation.

“The difference between the liberated you and the imprisoned you is understanding. Through understanding, we stop believing that we are, in essence, our Fear Selves. What was serious becomes playful. What was fearful becomes interesting. Liberation moves us from living an insecure and compulsive life to one that is ultimately a life of play and depth.”

This book comments on the impact of living from the Fear-Self upon society and world, and discusses the option of a society and world created out of living from liberation.

Eric Gross shines a thousand headlights on your Fear-Self. Seeing the Fear-Self, and seeing who sees it, you might realize there is another approach to living life.

Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All
by Eric Gross

Posted in Book Reviews | 1 Comment »
Tags: , ,

Book Review: An Extraordinary Absence, by Jeff Foster

November 27, 2009

An Extraordinary Absence:
Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life

by Jeff Foster

Review by Jerry Katz

Jeff Foster is a young and gifted confessor or sharer of what is. Jeff’s words are full of space. This book is incredibly effective in getting “you” to see there has never been a “you.” There’s only this.

I like the writing styles: Question and answer; confessions of what is; some writing structured as poems; and a fourth kind of writing that is set off by its own font, a courier typewriter style font, that gives a sense of “happening now.” This fourth kind of writing appears throughout the book under the heading “this”; here’s an example:

“Silence. I have no answer for her. This is empty of questions and answers. I am a child, I know nothing about nonduality. All I know is car horns, the whiff of aftershaves, the blowing of noses and aching of feet. This is where I live. Right here, not in some other dimension. The mouth opens to speak, even though I have no idea what to say.”

An Extraordinary Absence is a book of beauty but it’s not pretty. Jeff talks about pain, including his own extreme physical and emotional pain. He writes about the spectrum of humanity from “A little red-faced toddler in blue dungarees” to a man with terminal cancer:

“He is losing control of his bowels … I don’t tell him there’s no suffering, I don’t say `I’m enlightened and you’re not,’ I don’t even mention nonduality, I just wash his testicles.”

The Foreword by Kriben Pillay and the Introduction by Philip Pegler are themselves worthwhile documents on nonduality. Especially Kriben, a writer, observer, researcher, and publisher of nondualia since the mid-90s, makes strong statements:

“Much of the current nondual scene is … engaged in layered deceptions…”

It is essential that nonduality constantly check and undo itself. If the worldly construction of nonduality — as it is known in books, websites, forums, gatherings, conferences, satsangs, all media — if it can’t stand up to its decimation, what good is it?

Something else I like about this book is the quotations. They balance the book.

By around page 90 came the insight that I was reading a classic, even a potential screenplay with Jeff starring and doing the voiceover.

I also like how Jeff brings in Zen, Advaita, and Christianity. The emphasis on Christianity and crucifixion convey that Jeff knows Jesus the man, and resonates with the pain and the utter humanity exposed in this book, and yields this confession:

“Waking up from the dream of separation, there is a death, and that death, as Jesus said, is the only salvation. You have to lose your life to save it. And so when there is no-one, there isn’t an empty void, a lonely and joyless black space devoid of all qualities, no, no, no. That void is full, it is bursting with life. … And in that, all the concepts in the world dissolve.”

Read An Extraordinary Absence and watch how you become comfortable with wonder.

~ ~ ~

An Extraordinary Absence:
Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life

by Jeff Foster

Order from Amazon.com or Non-Duality Press, publisher in the U.K.

Read extracts from “An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life”

Posted in Book Reviews | 3 Comments »
Tags: ,

« Older posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 174 other followers